By ROCKNE ROLL
The Jewish Review
Congregation Neveh Shalom has announced that Rabbi Eve Posen will become the Conservative synagogue’s fourth Senior Rabbi later this year. 
Rabbi Posen, who joined Neveh Shalom in 2014, will succeed outgoing Senior Rabbi David Kosak. She’ll be the first woman to serve in the role and one of just a handful of female senior rabbis at Conservative synagogues of this size in the United States. 
“We’re really excited about it,” CNS President Mark Kalenscher said. “We think it’s absolutely the best move for Neveh Shalom.”
“It’s clearly the right move and the right rabbi to represent our community,” CNS Executive Director Marlene Edenzon said. 
Rabbi Posen was initially hired as the shul’s Rabbinic Educator and Youth Director, later being named Assistant Rabbi before taking on her current role as Associate Rabbi. 
“When you’re a lawyer, often the goal is to make partner. That’s not what my goal was as a rabbi. I came to Neveh not wanting to be a pulpit rabbi at all,” she explained. “Along the way, I have learned about pulpit work and fallen in love with it. And the truth is that my goal was not to be a senior rabbi wherever I can. It was that I’m in this space and I love this community and I want to be Senior Rabbi of Neveh Shalom.”
The community of Neveh Shalom specifically, and Portland’s Jewish community more broadly, were major factors that drew Rabbi Posen here 11 years ago and remain factors that keep her here today and for the future. 
“When we came to Portland in the first place, it was because the job fit what I was looking for at the time and we heard that Portland was a nice place to raise a family,” she said. “We want to stay because all of that was true and this community is loving and committed to working together, and it’s a place that’s become our home. “
In her time with the synagogue, Rabbi Posen has worked with each of her predecessors in her new role: Rabbi Kosak, Rabbi Emeritus Daniel Isaak and Rabbi Joshua Stampfer, z”l. 
“I’m a link in this chain of leadership and tradition that is strong and goes back generations of families,” Rabbi Posen said. “That, to me, is the beauty of Judaism; that we are connected to our ancestors.”
Her appointment follows a thorough process that began with the formation of a Rabbinic Transition Committee that surveyed the synagogue’s membership about what they were looking for in their next senior rabbi. Five hundred people completed the survey, Kalenscher said, with more than 350 providing additional comments – all of which guided the committee’s work. 
“The highest priority items included leading worship services and pastoral care, but also supporting connection to Israel and being a visionary,” Kalenscher said. “There was also desire for a leader who is very learned in Torah and Talmud, who has the ability to make halachic decisions.”
After a pair of two-hour long interviews, Rabbi Posen came through as just that leader. Both the Transition Committee and the synagogue’s board recommended her unanimously.
“[Rabbi Posen] progressed and did a lot more pulpit work in terms of leading services,” Kalenscher continued. “She really had to come through when Rabbi Kosak experienced his illness last year. She had a lot of opportunities to cover for him and pick up a significant amount of his responsibilities during that time and it was clear that she was up to the task.”
“I have had the good fortune over the last two years of working very closely with [Rabbi Posen],” Edenzon said. “When Rabbi Kozak became ill prior to the High Holidays in 2023, she stepped up and assumed a role of leadership in a way that really showed that she was quite confident and ready to handle this job.”
The gravity of Rabbi Posen’s appointment to a lead rabbinic role at a large Conservative synagogue, a situation that’s still something of a rarity, is not lost on anyone involved. 
“This is a historic moment for us,” Kalenscher said. “We’re proud to be blazing the trail.”
With Rabbi Rachel Joseph already announced as the next Senior Rabbi of Congregation Beth Israel, Edenzon explained, “We’re going to have two strong females leading Jewish Portland in two major synagogues in our community.”
“Part of why I never wanted to be a pulpit rabbi was that I’d never seen a woman in that position when I was growing up. Men were the pulpit rabbis and women were the educator rabbis. So, I never had in mind that this was something I could do,” Rabbi Posen recalled. “When I was 12 and I decided at my bat mitzvah to put on tallit and tefillin, I was one of the only girls to do that. I always stood out as the oddball in that sense. Now, in this moment, this means that there will never be a girl at Neveh Shalom that looks out and doesn’t see leadership as something that they can aspire to. It’s a big honor to change the tides of what is possible.”
With a Senior Rabbi selected, the Transition Committee will be exploring how they’d like to potentially fill out Neveh Shalom’s rabbinic roster. 
“We’re going to be talking about what we need for the clergy team that Rabbi Posen is going to be the leader of,” Kalenscher said, “and we’ll take it from there.”
In the meantime, Rabbi Posen is taking the opportunity to look back on the journey that’s brought her here. 
“One of the pieces that I’ve been reflecting on in this process is the gift of clergy to be with families as they grow and to walk the Jewish life cycle. Kids that were two when I moved here are now having their b’nai mitzvah. I treasure that as a gift of the rabbinate.” she explained. “For me, it’s also that Neveh Shalom has gotten to watch me grow as a rabbi. So, this is a full circle moment of being able to celebrate the fact that as human beings, we’re constantly learning and growing.”